We Don't Need No Love Songs
by recread
Summary: Dan/Blair, mentions of Chuck/Blair. Post S3, spoilers through end of S4. Title based on "We Don't Need No Love Songs" by Fitz and the Tantrums. Lyrics are centered, italicized, and the property of Fitz and the Tantrums.


Dan/Blair songfic slash drabble? Mentions of Chuck/Blair too. I'm sure you guys will figure out who is who. ;-)

I have never written for this before, but hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. All characters, etc. belong to the writers of Gossip GIrl, the CW, etc. The song is "We Don't Need No Love Songs" by Fitz and the Tantrums, who are amazing.

Lovers' habits die hard.

_We don't need no love song_

_To tell the world_

_How hopeless we feel_

_When it's dead and gone_

He still watches for her, slipping in and out of classrooms as though he were in fact a student, melding into the wall as though he were made of cheap plaster. He thinks there should be a sign – "Wet Paint" – to warn passersby from leaning against his sticky heart.

But who paints walls already stained white?

She has dried him out, dried out the whiteness of his eyes until he can no longer blink, lest he miss her.

_I've been lost without a reason_

_To keep going on_

_The truth is you won't_

_Be coming here no more_

He still listens for her, breathless and immobile in the stifling hum of the hotel room's central air. He hears the click of sharp heels, and then realizes it is the echo of unborn footsteps. He wonders how far he would follow those footsteps, and here his thoughts falter slightly because the leap off the ledge seems not so very far at all.

'_Cause we don't need no love songs_

_To feel the pain_

_Everybody's been through love in vain_

She combines words into sentences, sentences that structure her jigsaw world, and she never stops for fear that there are truly no more words to be spoken. Perhaps if she had dealt her cards with a weightless heart and heavier memories, she'd never again suffer the reminder that words do run out and so does time.

Her words and her sentences conjure up a prince, and in turn, she expects him to conjure up her heart.

It is here that the writer finds her, a ballerina figurine prepared to leap into a music box that will spin her and spin her and spit her out, motionless but never broken.

_We're fools for the heartaches_

_And blind to the soul_

_Can't feel the cut_

_Until the blood hits the floor_

He grows aware that the ballerina is in fact a kamikaze princess, awaiting a final curtain call that will burst into a blaze of applause. He has no desire to clap for this performance, so instead he rubs absently at his chest.

When no heart—his or hers—falls into hand, he scratches his head, and this time, he _is_ stunned when her endless words begin to pour from his ears.

Even paper can't catch these words, and he supposes he'll have to leave his heart out as a bucket for the rest.

_And it hurts so good_

_To feel the way lonely should_

She sits on a swing simply because she has never done so before. Not everything has changed, however: straight skirt pleats remain neatly folded across straight knees. But for the first time, nothing is as straight as her heart.

The curved spine of the book leaves pages wilting open in her hands, and never before has her heart felt lighter or her memory fuller, replete with words that have been reformed to create a seesaw world where a boy may say yes, then a girl may say no, but they'll meet in the middle just like so.

_Sorrow or comfort_

_Joy is just a name_

_You give to her forgiveness_

_And you take with you the blame_

He still watches for her, but now the colorlessness serves as a cloak of civility. He accepts his triumphs, nurses the occasional failure, and always yearns to paint her white too, white behind a veil of gauze that will secure her in his Empire.

But he has listened for her long enough to perceive—in that silence—the absence of his own inner beat. So for now and for evermore, in an altered vow, he pledges his white noise to her.

_I don't need no love song_

_To make it real_

_I saw you coming_

_And this is how I feel_

He hears her, the heels drumming against his heart until he thinks it could not be beaten any more tender. He watches her approach, fresh and pressed, just as though he'd removed her from the music box himself. She's still wound up, even after all this time.

"We don't have a song!"

"What?"

The wheels of his desk chair creak across the loft floor, as he performs one twirl to amuse his ballerina.

"We don't have a song! What'll we play for our first dance?"

"We don't need a song."

_The truth it can be painful _

_It hurts to be told _

_The song is almost over _

_And it's time to move on_

She watches for him, and he's not hard to see—as the only guest who has dared to affront the bride by wearing all white. It suits him, though, and it suits their swansong, two blinding figures no longer blinded by their silence.

Finally, she watches _him_, his fingers pulling the garter askew down her thigh. She hears him, his mouth against her ear, spelling out the words already so deeply inscribed, she may as well wear them stitched in her headbands for all to see.

Lovers' habits die hard—if at all.


End file.
